Sun Microsystems' decision this week to end-of-life one of the few storage appliances built with its own technology is being viewed as a positive move by the vendor's channel partners. However, those partners note that the move is only one of a number of on-going transitions as Sun looks for a solid direction for its storage business.

FalconStor Software, a provider of storage management software for business continuity, is about to go through the largest transition in its seven-year history -- and the changes will have a significant impact on its channel partners.

EMC said in a financial report that Dell now holds more than 10 percent of its accounts receivable, which at the end of its last quarter stood at $1.7 billion. The only surprise about that figure is that it is not higher, EMC solution providers said.

LSI Logic wants the channel to move quicker to adopt SAS and SATA technology, and introduced new adapter cards priced to move that strategy along. It this week re-priced its current line of combination SAS/SATA adapter cards so that there is no price premium over competitors' SATA-only cards, and introduced a new line of RAID adapters under its MegaRAID family which supports both serial-attached SCSI (SAS) and serial ATA (SATA) hard drives.

EMC on Tuesday brought its new Clariion CX3 family down a notch pricewise with the introduction of a new entry-level version, and complemented it with a lower-cost version of its disaster recovery and replication software.

Tape backup has received a lot of press recently--much of it none too flattering. Stories of vanishing data at some of the largest financial institutions have been everywhere. All of these incidents, combined with a sharper focus on security, have many organizations wondering if tape alternatives aren't better-suited for backup.

XChange 2017 featured dozens of vendors – including Extreme, Ingram Micro, Ruckus Wireless and many others – promoting their automation platforms, data backups, cybersecurity solutions and other offerings. Here are 30 products that stood out from the pack.